Review

Ravana Husma Langa:

Whispering the mightiness of true love

By Dilshan Boange

The word Ravana inspires manifold reactions and sentiments on both sides of the Palk Strait. A name revered by some, and reviled by others. A name that predates known history, and destined perhaps to last till human memory exists on earth.

The Sinhala play Ravana Husma Langa (Near the breath of Ravana) written and directed by Akhila Sapumal, is actually not a play based on the life and times of the enigmatic King Ravana, except that he is referred to in the context of a love story which the lovers Kassapa and Nilupul co-narrate to each other and declare to be the greatest love story in the Lankan history.

The creative licence adopted by the playwright shows that there is a notable imaginative pulse that carved out kernels related to the image and story of King Ravana and embedded them in the text of the play.

One example is how the lovers speak of King Ravana’s wife being one Princess Rishipaali. From the sources I have referred, his wife is said to be ‘Mandodari’ who was the daughter of Mayasura a powerful Asura king who was the architect to the gods.

An interesting point of critical discussion that the playwright brings on the boards is how the ‘Ravana resurgence’ of the present times have come up with some rather absurd notions which lend to in my opinion to a ‘nonsensical cultism’ which has seen the ‘emergence’ of several ‘direct descendants’ of King Ravana’s lineage to the public domain and discourse, including even those who claim that King Ravana in fact has now arisen from his millennia long hibernation.

Sources

‘Kassapa Vijayanayaka’ the lead male in the story is one such Ravana researcher who theorises in his undergrad dissertation about what Ravana era history was, without substantiation through valid sources. This element is telling of how academic institutions and ‘knowledge production’ can be severely scrutinised for the authority they purport to have.

Now, as I recapture in my mind, the essences of that play, which I watched on August 12 at the Tower Hall, Maradana, I feel it is apt to cite an excerpt from a poem by the 13th century Sufi poet ‘Rumi’ who has said - “Do not be satisfied with stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.”

This path of freedom of thought hinted at by Rumi, gives credence to be unconstrained in one’s goal to birth a story narrative, to create through recreation of stories past and stories made anew.

The playwright Sapumal has in that sense allowed his creative senses to unfold. What I saw to be a modern critique of how love, power, the state, and history can find a strange convergence for conflict and coexistence in a given moment of an individual’s state of being. The individual being, the democratically elected ‘people’s representative’ Kassapa Vijayanayake.

Darkness

Under the gentle darkness of the Tower Hall, as I watched the drama unfold in ‘colour’, ‘form’, and ‘flesh’ on the boards, I saw how the story carries in its ‘heart’ the theme of love and its manifold afflictions which become bound to lovers through the course of their lives. In the veins of the play are burning questions related to love: can it exist unconditionally in a pure form unaffected by factors such as ‘power lust’ and hunger for fame and stature, which are compelling human desires as well?

Can love be ‘apolitical’? Can love be a tool of the crafty over the naïve?

Can love be completely divorced from man’s politics? It is in the context of raising such compelling questions that the playwright delivers in the subtext of the play an indisputable truth - love as we know it today, cannot exist without the State.

The simple reason being that everything we call our ‘way of life’, our ‘order of things’ or our ‘civilisation’ which facilitates human existence as we know it today, are in fact ‘facets’ of the State, which can be thought of as the human requirements for ‘order’ to function collectively with interdependence between people that ensures individual survival.

But when one brings in the element of ‘power’ into a discourse about ‘love’, at the outset it may seem disdainful to the devoted lover to imagine ‘true love’ can be touched by the human reality called ‘power’, which is generally perceived as a destructive desire. However, like ‘love’, power too is a desire that defines the human who may at times lust for power not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. The ‘feeling’ alone can be the ‘gain’, the ‘goal’, which is yearned for. Like ‘love’, ‘power’ can be a very fulfilling feeling to the human being.

Empowerment

Is love empowerment? Does it empower lovers or does is it disempowering; leaving them broken? These are questions that the viewer is delivered by the very ‘text’ of the play through the characters of Kassapa and Nilupul and their lives which are intercut with a narrative that predates their times, but is marked as the ‘beginning of history’ in our country.

This analogical narrative meant to juxtapose the lovers Kassapa and Nilupul is none other than the story of Prince Vijaya from the Kingdom of Lata ruled by King Singhabahu which is part of modern day West Bengal in India, and Princess Kuveni of Lanka, who was the sister of the ruler of the island nation which is heir to the legacy of King Ravana.

The narrative technique devised by Sapumal is one where Kassapa (whose surname is interestingly ‘Vijayanayaka’ a Sinhala surname that merges the name of the father of the Sinhala race with the Sinhala word for leader -‘Nayaka’) inhabits Prince Vijaya’s image in the critique of love, power and betrayal.

Like Princess Kuveni was discarded by Prince Vijaya to consolidate his hold over the State of Lanka and become supreme ruler, Kassapa too finds a dilemma after being elected to office, when his cohorts who helped him rise to power, see his love affair with Nilupul being an impediment for his political progress since the discrepancies of class, wealth and standing in society between them may discredit the image Kassapa has developed as a leader of the oppressed.

The play portrays a Prince Vijaya who was the victim of not only his own ego and power lust but also the moral obligation to followers who hold him morally bound to their wishes on the basis that they faithfully followed him to exile swearing an oath of undying allegiance to him.

Political trickery

Did Prince Vijaya truly feel love for Kuveni at any point? Or was it designed as political trickery from the very outset to the end? While the playwright raises these rather sensitive questions one thing must not be lost sight of from a critical perspective of gauging the play for the parallels it attempts to draw between the two sets of lovers and infer that history repeats itself in different forms.

And that is that what one finds in the life and objectives of Kassapa engagingly played on stage by the director Akhila Sapumal himself, are politics of the mundane, found all too commonly when any Sri Lankan either picks up a newspaper or simply steps out on to the road and sees the election canvassing landscapes which are inescapable.

What one must realise is that in the politics of Prince Vijaya what is found at the very root of it, is statecraft which bore a Herculean task of being a foundation to an entirely new form of nationhood altogether.

Prince Vijaya’s politics was to birth a new nation state; which cannot be likened and weighed out in juxtaposition to Kassapa’s goals of being a people’s representative in the power folds of today’s party politics of State. The outcomes, the destructions, the ignobleness and glories or ignominies etc of these two scenarios are worlds apart, not just in terms of chronology but also the particular merits and demerits both would posses in their own respective objectives.

While the drama does not run a conventional narrative mode that appeals to a viewer seeking a realist form, I wouldn’t be hasty to classify it as one that is purely arty and cannot find viewership with mainstream theatregoers if the play was restructured to meet certain expectations. At times artistes tend to think that the less accessible their work is to the average person, the more the work gains reputation as being intellectually superior, and thereby serving the cause of a ‘higher art’ and not popular culture.

These are notions that any young practitioner in the arts can easily be swayed by. Convolution of form can at times obscure the clarity of content in a work of art like theatre or film.

In this regard I feel that this play can benefit greatly if the playwright and director were to re-engage in assessing which scenes and elements ensure the clarity of ideas of the story to flow as a narrative devised for the stage. The narrative not being composed of only dialogue but also song and some elements of dance performance.

Prosaic

The play had several songs which contained lyrics that were notably prosaic. The ideas in the lyrical content could have been constructively threaded to the text of the play as monologues or incorporated in dialogue. A song to ‘work’ in a play can be a tricky thing.

It must prove itself worthy to be part of a drama narrative, as part of ‘theatre language’ in two ways. Firstly it must display its merits as a song that can carry itself in melody, music and lyrics and not be merely dialogue being rhythmically spoken, which if so, could give the drama the mould of a musical drama, which of course is a different genre, to which Ravana Husma Langa cannot subscribe.

Secondly, a song in a play must ideally prove to have ‘functional’ purpose/value in the drama narrative, which may entertain the viewer with a change of pace, and further the storyline by either conveying a development in the plot, or stressing on a key thematic element of the story which heightens the dramatic effect of performance.

For example, the song ‘Sirith virith’ in the Sinhala translation of Fiddler on the Roof titled Vadakaya Wahala Uda, which I watched on February 14, 2013 at the John de Silva auditorium, directed by Vijitha Bandara.

That particular song which is performed as a ‘community expression’ with a dance works beautifully to further the understanding of the social and cultural premise of the people, using a song as a device. And that musical element possesses the indisputable constitution of a song that can stand alone as a performance while being part of the story’s narrative.

A song in a drama can occupy the mere position of an embellishment, ornamentation, by virtue of being an entertaining ‘piece of performance’, but that can render it as of course not indispensable to the narrative of the story.

Abstract

I honestly felt that most of the song elements in Ravana Husma Langa may have added some artistic embellishment to the fabric of the performance and enriched its texture, but did a disservice in the form of being somewhat abstract and thereby likely to distance the average theatregoer when looked at from the point of expectations of the mainstream viewer.

Definition

On the aspect of acting I hesitate to say that the cast was equally balanced in terms of acting talent. But at the same time I will note for the record that this performance must be seen in the light of an amateur production, which has not the strength of a stellar cast of seasoned artists as one would see in a play like Dolahak which is the Sinhala translation of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men produced to the Sinhala stage as a translation by Athula Pathirana, which received much acclaim from theatregoers and critics alike.

However, it would be unjust of me if I fail to mention that Uthpala Jayavikrama who handled the dual task of switching between the characters of Nilupul and Princess Kuveni, performed commendably, showing notable prowess as a stage drama actress. I would unhesitatingly say she took the crown for acting in that production.

What has Sapumal and his team achieved through the production of Ravana Husma Langa in the light of what I saw and discussed in this review? While I shall leave the reader to decide based on what I have critically discussed whether this play has potential to appeal to more general audiences, there is no doubt that the solid food for thought which the play offers is truly appreciable and must be saluted as a work that carries deep echoes of what it means to be ‘human’; a creature who by nature is defined in Aristotelian thought as ‘political’.

At a time when there are more and more Sinhala translations of foreign plays capturing centre stage in the realm of theatre, and original plays begin to recede in numbers, Ravana Husma Langa must be saluted for its originality.

Sapumal’s creation is certainly not merely a number that adds to the list of original plays done today, but an artistically innovative, original play which can be hailed for the boldness it possesses not only in theme and content but in the attempts to offer newness to present day theatre in our country.

In conclusion if one were to return to the play’s central themes and contentions and wonder how King Ravana fits into the scheme? It becomes subtly evident.

The play suggests that in the history of our country it was only the love story of King Ravana and beloved Rishipaali that can claim to have had perfect harmony as a pristine love story that wasn’t traumatised by the injuries of power play of the State.

Power

King Ravana is held in Lankan lore as an incomparable figure of might and power. Is it only those of such tremendous strength as King Ravana who offer love that is never shaken off course due to distractions of power lust? Nilupul claims that King Ravana did not seduce Princess Sita whom he abducted in retribution to the insult done him by Prince Rama her husband, because he was completely in love with Rishipaali and would never betray his love to her by seeking pleasure with another woman.

When true love is found as that between King Ravana and his Rishipaali nothing can come between those lovers. That love cannot be ousted by any other contender as status or power. Thus the play whispers to us, that the truest love that existed was the love between Ravana and Rishipaali. But then that was in a time before known time. Yet it is all too convenient and unromantic to call it purely a ‘myth’, dismiss as unreal, utterly fictional, and thereby suggest to lovers today that true and enduring love is mythical. That is why, Akhila Sapumal, as an artist, did not submit to the authority of stories that come before us. And instead, chose to unfold his own.